Composer Austin Wintory Shares Story And Demos From His Attempt To Land ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Gig

Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory, best known for his work in video games and in particular for the award-winning PlayStation game Journey, has revealed he was in the running to score Star Trek: Discovery. Writing on Medium, the life-long Trek fan revealed what he called his “amazing experience” tying to land the Trek gig which eventually went to Jeff Russo.

Three demos

Austin Wintory says after learning that Star Trek was returning to TV he implored his agent to get him in the running. They decided the first step would be for him to develop a theme which could be presented to the Discovery team back in 2016. So Wintory quickly developed an idea and hired an orchestra to perform what he called “a sort of love letter visual montage to the legacy of Star Trek,” which you can see and hear below.

As noted in his account, Wintory knew that without any experience working in episodic television, his chances were long, however the demo piqued the interest at CBS and he was asked to pitch an idea for the music for what would become the SDCC 2016 teaser, featuring the USS Discovery coming out of the dock. You can listen to that demo below.

Another composer was selected, and Wintory moved on saying “I was STOKED. I had had my hat in the ring on a real Star Trek show!” However, a few months later he was surprised to again be approached because “things hadn’t worked out with the composer they’d hired, and they were once again looking.”

This time he was invited in to speak with co-creator and showrunner (at the time) Bryan Fuller. Wintory describes the direction he was given to develop what would be his third demo in attempt to land the Discovery gig:

Bryan also told me something immensely exciting: “for the new demo, please don’t hold back. Give us full, unreserved Wintory. We want something musically aggressive and unique.” (and, as a side note, they hinted a quasi-religious, almost ‘spiritual warrior’ concept for the Klingons in the show, which was a great musical leaping-off point).

Shortly after recording the third demo Bryan Fuller stepped down from Discovery, but Wintory was asked to still submit the demo. In early 2017 he was told he wasn’t selected as the composer, but he had no regrets and was happy to be “seriously considered for a major show, one with massive childhood and personal significance.”

Wintory’s tale has some parallels with Star Trek VI composer Cliff Eidelman who revealed late last year he also was in the running to get the job for Discovery. There are likely more composers out there who were up for the job before Jeff Russo eventually was chosen, and maybe they too will come forward and share some of their music for what could have been.

Star Trek writer is a fan

After Wintory revealed his story on Medium, Discovery staff writer Bo Yeon Kim had a fangirl moment, showing her excitement over having the Journey composer pitching for Star Trek.

Okay I'm trying to calm down but BUT JOURNEY AND @awintory'S SCORE FOR THE VIDEO GAME MADE SUCH A HUGE IMPACT ON ME AS A WRITER

Bear McCreary was the one behind BSG’s score, and I liked that it was his vision and added such a consistency to the series. I guess having multiple composers would be fine, per tradition, but with a single story running the length of the season I’d want some consistency in the music

It’s think it has become more common to have the same composer write the music for the whole show. This gives a more consistent musical feeling. Changing composers from episode to episode also makes less sense with the serialized nature of Discovery.

@Garth Lorca — don’t be fooled, Russo is hardly the ONLY composer. He’s just the guy they hired to oversee the team of ghost writers who work for him. And to be fair Russo might actually give some of them credit on the cue sheets, if not the screen — heck he might actually write some of the music himself.

I appreciate the share. This sets aside ego and includes us into the process. Many good choices have to be put aside in whichever direction is chosen, so it’s very interesting to hear Wintory’s offerings, which are pretty cool!

Clearly the producers wanted to go with something more contemporary so they gave us the bland and forgettable minimalism of the Russo theme. Actually, that music is so basic it barely qualifies as a theme. If you don’t believe me, try humming Disco muzak in the shower and you will notice there’s no there there, much like the show itself.

Eidelman was Meyer’s child and Meyer himself seems to be completely sidelined since Fuller was fired. His input into the show must be well zero by now. Harberts won’t let anyone else play with his new-found toys…

Yeah, this is sad. I wonder if anyone bothered to talk with Mr Meyer about this situation, I usually find his interviews to be refreshingly honest, and I don’t think he would hold back his opinion on this situation.

In the first clip, I heard the Goldsmith TMP title and the Horner TWOK/TSFS titles, with just a hint of Goldsmith’s ST:FC theme. Derivative in a way that just makes for poor comparison. My ears weren’t fresh enough for the second clip, but I don’t think it merits revisiting.

This would have been an excellent theme if the new Star Trek show was an episodic series like the classics, but I understand why the producers would want to go with more “contemporary” or “modern” sounds within a more serialized and “dark” setting.

I had the good fortune to interview Wintory about a year ago when he was in town for some appearances with our symphony orchestra. The guy is an endless fountain of energy and creativity.

Others who commented on his allusions to Jerry Goldsmith are dead-on because Wintory readily points to the Hollywood legend as a huge influence. I really wish now I had asked his reflections on Alexander Courage’s work on TOS as I might have been surprised at some of his reflections.

@BB — I used to think that about DS9, but the reality is, it actually works extremely well for an immobile space station anchored near a wormhole. Where a similar treatment failed was Goldsmith’s theme for VOY. That’s probably the worst application of a Trek theme for any of them. Such a complete antithesis of the actual Voyager saga.

I agree that the tone doesn’t seem to match the tone of the series. To be fair, the composer probably didn’t know what kind of tone they were going for when he wrote most of that music. So I expect the score would sound differently if he had been hired.

Approximately 0:30 to 1:30 of the third demo would’ve been perfect for the “Star Trek: Discovery” opening credits theme.

If the series had been conceived as a horror show version of Star Trek, that is. The ghost of Bernard Herrman’s “Psycho” seemed like a huge influence on that demo track. Fascinatingly riveting music, to be sure, but not at all appropriate (imho) for the tone of the series that we just finished watching this season.